UNBURDENED, UNKNOWN — dawnglare

[FANG]

Trees have never been Fang's preferred place of hunting. He's done just fine on the ground or in the water, swiping fish from the brine and mice from their burrows. But here, the ground is cold and solid, and the woodlands are not as towering as the ones he'd long ago left behind. There are skittering things which take refuge in the boughs—he hears them at dawn and dusk, scampering overhead, and has yet to see one songbird or squirrel descend from their safe and snow-dodged branches and into the places he can catch them.

So, he starts small. There's a fruit tree near the edge of someone's yard, its leaves fallen and limbs chipped with frost. The neighborhood that lies beyond is dormant in the gray evening, curled up beyond a stretch of frosty green turf and a tall picket fence, and the forest before SkyClan's border is just a skip away should he encounter any unsavory company. Fang stalks from the nearby undergrowth and claws his way up the flank of the tree without too much fanfare, but it's navigating the branches that's the difficult part.

He crouches at the base of the lowest tree limb, claws digging into is coarse, barky exterior, and gives a few lamb-footed steps forward. He thinks that he should be able to use this tree as a starting point; that he can follow its reach onto a nearby tree deeper into the forest, then work his way upward. The further along this first branch he gets, though...the more he's convinced that this may have been wishful thinking.

Fang does not make it to the next tree, nor does he even make it across the first one. He's crouched at the center of one branch like a deer in headlights when a particularly biting gust of wind shakes at his perch. Thankfully, when he inevitably leaps from the undulating branch, he at least has enough deftness to land on his feet.

// @DAWNGLARE​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

If this stranger were to lift his gaze to the trees— let his eyes glint sun - lacquered to a thick pine branch dipping steadily overhead, he would see Dawnglare, all auburn - and - white that both takes to, and fights against the pure whiteness of snow. Clearly, unlike this one, he takes quite easily to the trees. It has been a moment since he's found a reason too— his clamoring is all recreation, none of the hunting; snatching of birds from the air. Amidst all the injury, he has allowed himself this short detour. It is unlucky for them, that their trees remain insidious year - round, something in the pine sap leaving them unwilling to shed their leafy green... At the same time, these trees were what he was used to. Perhaps he should not envy the oaks so much.

" You are not very good at this, " he keenly observes, peering at the stranger with prying, blue eyes. Perhaps it is life as a clan cat that has left him more aware of strangers. After all, within twolegplace, such a thing is not such an uncommon occurrence Within closed borders and minds just the same, every new face was a fuss...

" In need of a teacher? " he would ask, and he smiles to himself, knowing that he certainly would not be volunteering himself. He has one too many hopeless pupils at his paws, at the moment... He certainly did not need another.

Though—

The thought is pushed away before it can properly be formed. He has no interest in it; no love for it. He hoarded all of it in the world, for a certain two— ah, maybe three. And three was already enough. He would spread it no thinner. Looking upon this one, all sinew and tawny color, he sees not the makings for a friend. " How about one in the ways of grooming? " Messy, beastly thing. Dawnglare's own paw comes to rub at his own face, perhaps only to show that he could do so.

A WISE WOMAN SAID I'M ALIVE 🍷 NOBODY'S EVER TOLD HER SHE'S WRONG

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• ( I'M AS ALIVE AS HER BEARD IS LONG ) DAWNGLARE Medicine Cat of SkyClan. Mentoring Fireflypaw
  𓆩♡𓆪 He / him , deeply confused by the use of other pronouns
  𓆩♡𓆪 Currently 60 moons old as of 1.1.24. Mated to Mallowlark
  
  Unsettling and strange, Dawnglare bears a unique perception to the world and stars above on top of a generally unpleasant disposition. Holds others to uniquely impossible standards and himself undeniably above the rest.
  Mood is decided by dice - rolls per thread, with the exception of some important threads

​

 

[FANG]

A voice peals out aboveground. Fang does look up, and he does squint. Frosted rays seep through the pine boughs, revealing a reddish-tuned tomcat haloed in silvery light, peering down at him with lidded, icy blue eyes. There's something insidious and snake-like about the smile which richly curls across his snowy maw. The way he leers downward like a mad scientist examining his patient. But his voice is smooth and melodious; song-like, for all its scathing sarcasm.

Grooming? Fang spares a glance down at his own pelt, burr-stricken and tangled, and does not see whatever Dawnglare alludes to.

Fang turns back toward the fruit tree. As Dawnglare jeers at him, he latches himself to the trunk and climbs back up to his own perch, wobbling uncertainly. He wants to get used to being off the ground. Perhaps with some exposure, he'll be more confident in keeping his balance.

"You're a clan cat," Fang calls, not meeting Dawnglare's eye or answering his questions, but asking his own nonetheless. He watches his paws and the ground beneath him, keeping himself perched with the occasional sharp jolt of movement whenever he feels he might fall. "Do clan cats usually trek this far from their border?"

Opposed to Dawnglare's conceited irony, Fang speaks with complete earnestness. Clanlife is as foreign to him as this forest, the neighborhood, and all the creatures within. As far as he can tell, SkyClan has a vast, well-guarded territory. Prey which crosses their border has already been claimed without even meeting the teeth, nor eyes, of the those within. He feels no contempt at the idea that these clan cats then wander their borderlands despite coveting so much territory for themselves, taking what precious few prey creatures have yet to be killed, when stragglers like Fang have been foodless for days.

No contempt...but it's a close thing.​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

The scraggly thing certainly takes their time with their reply. Dawnglare perches whilst the stranger claws their way onto a lower branch with all the certainty of a newborn kit. He knows that they hear him— judging from the brief pause to assess their own self. Dawnglare's brows quirk high upon his face, watching, waiting for that moment of clarity. ...And, there is little. It is not so much like the sun lighting the sky for the first time is it is lightning bugs with crooked wings a light left unrealized. His face has fallen, unimpressed, by the time the stranger opens their own mouth.

Dawnglare is not one to be ignored, no. Irritation flickers upon his features the moment they speak of things unrelated. Unrelated and untrue. Dawnglare would never call himself a clan cat, though he supposes, by proxy, he was indeed one... Or did it matter, when the one you had gone for calls you a traitor to their cause?

(He has never cared. He had stopped pretending that he did long ago)

" No, " enunciated clearly, with a curl in his lip. Pride, or something similar. " I suppose I'm not like the rest of them," Thank the stars. What future would there be for them at all, if he was? And he realizes that he shouldn't care about such an insignificant future, but, well... " Most would be revolted to step foot in here. Simple - minded, really. "

A WISE WOMAN SAID I'M ALIVE 🍷 NOBODY'S EVER TOLD HER SHE'S WRONG

• 
  
  

• 

• ( I'M AS ALIVE AS HER BEARD IS LONG ) DAWNGLARE Medicine Cat of SkyClan. Mentoring Fireflypaw
  𓆩♡𓆪 He / him , deeply confused by the use of other pronouns
  𓆩♡𓆪 Currently 60 moons old as of 1.1.24. Mated to Mallowlark
  
  Unsettling and strange, Dawnglare bears a unique perception to the world and stars above on top of a generally unpleasant disposition. Holds others to uniquely impossible standards and himself undeniably above the rest.
  Mood is decided by dice - rolls per thread, with the exception of some important threads

​